While we all as parents are guilty of finding what our children do wrong and often forget
to give that much needed pat on the back, the fact is that where our attention goes is
where your child’s attention also goes. Now, why would you want them to pay more
attention to what they do wrong because what a child pays attention to determines how
they will behave.
A study many years ago reported that when a young child is learning to read and the
teacher pointed out the errors, the student would then make more of them! When,
however, the teacher simply made the correction by giving the right answer and drew
attention to what was right rather than what was wrong, the student immediately
integrated the information and his or her learning progressed much more readily.
The more attentive you are to what your child is doing right and then recognize the
good work, the more motivated your child will be to learn and do the right thing. Positive
energy from someone we care about gives an emotional boost that causes one to
become self-motivated which makes parenting easy and much more fun. Here’s a
bonus tip. When you compliment your child on a job that could have been done better,
guess what. Next time it will be!
